


War of Spirits

by likethemouse



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Near Future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 12:21:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3134315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likethemouse/pseuds/likethemouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year and a half after team Avatar defeated Kuvira new revelations about Varrick’s spirit vine technology threaten Future Industries while discord in the Spirit World begins pouring over into the material one, causing more than its share of problems for the Avatar. The symmetrical chaos cracks the foundation of Korra and Asami's relationship leading to a quest for balance that may determine the course of an otherworldly war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolouge

It was rare for her to even be at the mansion. The nights of the past four months were spent sleeping between paper-strewn desks and uncomfortable office couches while work on the City Expansion Project reached a peak of critical activity. Future Industries new focus on civil engineering meant daylong visits to work sites and hours of logistical meetings with land acquisition agents left no time for anything during the day which was sort of the idea; passing out exhausted on nearby furniture was her only relief from rampant thought. The mansion waited, occupied off and on by the families of friends or those whose houses were destroyed when Kuvira attacked. Even almost two years later there was an ample populace in need and no one could accuse Asami or Future Industries of being stingy. Immediately following the attack she’d dedicated every vehicle in her employ to transporting refugees and supplies but the amount left to do was overwhelming, a situation unaided by her personal complications.

Mainly that meant Korra, who had appeared without warning that morning in Republic city after they’d spent three months writing confused letters with a strange, antiseptic lack of intimacy. Before leaving to play diplomatic envoy in the Earth Nation there were several uneasy discussions about taking a break during which Korra hadn’t looked her in the eye once. Her reasons mostly involved distance and Avatar responsibilities but they were familiar fears underwritten by something else, a misplaced explanation likely inexplicable to Korra herself. Equally as inexplicable that she would walk into the middle of Asami’s meeting with president Raiko as if they had longstanding lunch plans.

            “Korra?”

            “Avatar?”

            She’d looked between them, sheepish but unapologetic and whisked her out on ‘official avatar business.’ The two of them, laughing outside of Raiko’s office.

“Advice on building materials for roads in the Earth Nation? I can’t believe he fell for that.”

            Korra laughed, deep and mischievous, “Sorry for interrupting but you looked like you were about to die of boredom.”

            “There’s just…a lot to do.”

The profile of light created between Korra’s face and the fresh, spring sun of that afternoon sated her so completely that she didn’t feel the immediate need to ask for an explanation. It was easy to get caught up in the surge of her presence.

 

As it turned out she was in the city to present the newest coterie of Earth Nation’s elected officials to the presidential cabinet, it was a daylong trip that smudged into an early evening and eventually night after Asami invited her back to the mansion.

“Or do you have to get back?”

“So I can what? Settle more squabbles over which town gets which hippo cow?” She sighed, “Don’t get me wrong I know its important, avatar blah blah blah but the place won’t fall apart if I get back a little later tomorrow.”

 The pair of them in her bedroom at the mansion where she was embarrassed by the mess of her normally organized clothes left on the floor for weeks between occasional visits to grab supplies. When she tried to pick some of it up Korra laughed, hands on her hips, “I don’t care what your room looks like! I’m just happy to see you.”

Then the next part; undoing the tie in her hair to find it much longer, kissing her, being held tightly like she might lose form is he wasn’t kept together, the firm outline of Korra’s shoulder muscles as she lay on her stomach beside her with the term ‘break’ blessedly far from her thoughts and so by the strange will of chance she was there the night Taru broke in.

 

The entire event could be summed up in a single explosive crack as Korra nearly set the ceiling aflame, bursting from bed in a flashing whirl of fire and air bending. In the sudden, subsequent dark Asami saw the shadow of a figure slam into the far wall of her bedroom with the creak of splintering wood and a litany of strange hollow noises from something being dropped.

“Asami get down!”

Another missile of flame lit the room; someone in a dark outfit clumped in a pile of clothes and crushed furniture while around them laid several strange tubes. They were trying to say something when the oncoming blast forced a dodge back towards the open window where heat whipped the curtain in agitated circles. With a single fluid motion they were over the sill above the courtyard but not before a blast of air caught their ankle and sent them somersaulting downward, Asami would have thought they’d fallen to their death if not for the loud splash. Korra was out after them without a second thought, the water from the courtyard pool rising to ferry her down. In the span of her two-story descent an alarm went up and guards flooded the courtyard with mounted spotlights. Korra stood for a moment in the square of violent light; the colorful spring flowers of the courtyard drowned in brightness.

The intruder shot up from the pool bringing an upward jet of water with them, it was a young woman with the dark complexion of a water bender. Her first strike took Korra by surprise and slammed into her shoulder but with her location revealed there was little to save her from the inevitable counter.

“Stop!”

The call could not rescind a wall of water that slammed into the intruder and left her groaning on the stones of the courtyard. One of the spotlights lit up the sash of the upstairs window where Asami stood holding one of the dropped tubes. By the full force of the spot bulb the item was apparent, a long leather container for holding rolled documents outfitted with a carrying strap. The intruder stirred and stood, sopping wet, her hair hung dark with water dripping onto the stones. The harsh light put her within Korra’s shadow and the dark obscured her face beside the glints reflected in the water. Slowly, struggling through her new pain, the intruder put her hands up in surrender.


	2. Part I: New Roots

Maybe a quarter of the regions could be called stable if you used the word loosely. By the tenth village or so Bolin realized why everything looked familiar and the full irony occurred to him; that he was traveling to the same places as he had with Kuvira, healing wounds he had a hand in causing. It was work made more difficult by the occasional recognition he received. At one stop a scuffle broke out and at another the villagers had come ready with tomatoes to throw. Korra gave him permission to leave but he refused, there was a lot of work to be done and he never shied away from heavy lifting and while installing democratic systems might not exactly be his strong suit the strange magnetism of his personality had endeared a leader or two and the publicity of his mover days still held weight within certain communities. Really though, if he was being honest with himself, Korra probably didn’t _need_ him- it was he that needed. Needed all of it, the redemption and the work- knowing that he wasn’t just wasting away at some unrelated job in Republic City trying to ignore the past three years of his life.

Since the others left the day before, airship laden with freshly chosen leaders, Bolin and Wu were holding fort at their latest success. Bringing balance to a dozen or so city-states was proving more difficult than expected. Border disputes had arisen and any community with a few extra benders and enough ambition was capable of doing serious damage to neighboring villages, as insurance they left guard detachments where they could but any group could be overwhelmed and his extended presence seemed reassuring. Plus someone needed to stay with Wu. Despite his protests (and his requests for Mako once accepting his fate) they had all agreed that Wu should accompany them in their negotiations. He had amends to make with the people and it was best that the new city states felt the unity of the government they were creating. Somehow acting as his bodyguard had given Bolin status similar to a general. Already the commander had come to ask for advice more than once, questions like ‘where should we be placing sentinels?’ or ‘how often should we patrol?’ as if Bolin was some sort of military leader when the best he could do was scratch his head and make a guess.

They were staying in a cottage near the rail station outfitted with rustic furniture- comfortable feather beds and hot running water. It was a small village and there wasn’t much to do in terms of entertainment, now that dinner was over he had every intention of going to sleep but returning to his room found he wasn’t tired though the same could not be said of Wu, whose soft snores now wafted out of the other room. Instead he unfolded his map of the Earth Kingdom and sketched a new line, their newest border. Negotiations between the Kuei-sho and Chinsu provinces had taken weeks and everyone was happy to have things in order. The line was jagged but proper and he was proud of his part in it.

Spring in the Earth Kingdom, (the Earth Union, the Earth Republic they’d yet to settle on a name) was mild and he left the window open to feel the breeze. On the wind was the smell of open fields and chopped wood mixed with cooking smells as they began to diffuse into the night. He could hear the chirping of crickets and lowing of nearby Hippo Cows, another sound too. It emerged from the sounds around it, suddenly obvious with strangeness; a kind of inorganic rustling just outside his window and he listened for another moment trying to place it before a burst flung a chunk of stone into his face.

 

He was no stranger to a hard hit, it spun him out of his chair but he recovered with an uppercut towards the window and hopefully his attacker. The rocks hit someone hard but another body took their place, how many were there? Three? Four? He blocked another burst of stone but the third hit him square in the chest and knocked the air out of his lungs. In a daze on the floor he saw a flock of green outfits with the solid, familiar insignia of the Dai Li.

* * *

 

 

The Intruder sat at her father’s conference table, for some reason Asami had a hard time thinking about it as hers. It was the same with the rest of the house and the place remained, in her mind at least, her father’s mansion. In the dark Asami hadn’t recognized the water bender and even now the identification seemed impossible, it’d been years since they’d seen one another but the documents were enough to confirm: Taru Eun.

“So, an explanation would be nice.”

 

Korra was yet to sit, she stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her jaw in its typical jutted set for intimidation. There was enough time while the guards brought Taru up to the conference room for both of them to get more appropriately dressed. Korra had hardly been wearing more than her underwear in the courtyard and they were lucky it was that much. One of the guards had given Taru some water and she held one glowing palm against the side of her badly swollen face.

 

“My names Taru, my father used to work for Future Industries. I’m sorry I snuck in. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“The front door in the daytime might have been a good start.”

 

They only met once or twice as children when Taru came along with her father for meetings but she wouldn’t have guessed that this was the woman she might have grown into. In childhood Taru was solid, even chubby but the young woman before her was a wisp of lean muscle with a clever, light brown face. Her hair was cut short with the fringe arranged in braids.

 

“Silly me, thanks for the advice.”

“Don’t try and be smart, for all I know you’re some kind of assassin.”

 

At this Taru looked past Korra to Asami as if asking for help but before she could say anything (what could she even say?) Korra intercepted the glance.

 

“Don’t try that either, I don’t care if you are who you say you are. Where your dad used to work won’t make me trust you. That would require, I don’t know, actual information about you.”

“She’s right,” Asami stepped forward, suddenly conscious of her distance from Korra, “Explain why you’re here.”

 

Taru looked between them with disdain at being outnumbered and shifted her cupped hand full of healing water down to the lower part of her chin where a purple bruise was forming.

 

“Okay, well, stay standing. My dad was Sang Eun, he used to work for Future Industries until Amon, he was laid off when the company tanked. Those documents I brought were his, they’re…” Something about this next part was making her nervous, her gaze shifted away from them to her own free hand on the table, “I think he worked with Kuvira and, I don’t know, I guess Varrick. But listen wait-!”

 

Korra had turned as if intent on burning the tubes herself.

 

“They aren’t _just_ weapons. There’s other stuff, useful stuff. That’s why I brought them, but there’s something else too. I found these when my dad died, we went through his plans.”

“We?”

 

Taru was trying to look even further away now but it was no longer possible, there was no safe perch in the room for her to land on.

 

“My brother, that’s why I snuck in. He can’t know that I brought them to you,” here she smiled sheepishly at her own knees, “I didn’t exactly expect the Avatar to be here.”

 

Now it was their turn to be self-conscious, Asami mentally measured the distance between them again. Was it too close, should she stand further away?

 

“Don’t make this about me. Why can’t your brother know you’re here?”

“He wants to use them. Or sell them. Actually I’m afraid he already has.”

“What are you saying exactly?

            “That’s why I thought if I brought them here, maybe you could use them the right way. The way dad would have wanted, because Kang doesn’t care he just wants to make some money off of-“

            “Who?”

            “What?”

            “Who are you afraid he sold them to?”

 

            Taru looked between them, genuinely surprised for the first time since Korra nearly singed her eyebrows off in Asami’s bedroom, “The Loyalists, who did you think?”

* * *

 

Things were going missing, not big things or at least not big things at first but the more conspicuous they became the more Mako refused to believe it was a coincidence. At first it’d been strange things: shutters, cookware even a few doorknobs. Now it was even stranger. Car theft was a common problem in Republic City but never before had a vehicle been stripped of only half its chassis and headlights with almost no evidence as to how. The other puzzling thing was the different locations, there was no area around which the thefts were centralized and he had even found a few instances almost outside of the city among these, an incident at the Kyoshi bridge where a section of the underbridge was stripped and stolen. Those newspapers that bothered had attributed it to pranksters but the entire thing stank of conspiracy. Bei Fong was quick to remind him it wasn’t his problem, “Put a beat cop on it. I don’t pay you salary to work petty theft crimes.” But unable to give it up completely he put a filter on any reports involving strange theft of small metal items and was rewarded with another dozen within a week. Though determined to work the case it was an additional workload without Bei Fong’s approval and so far only managed to exhaust him without turning up any promising clues.

 

            Walking home at two in the morning had become a common occurrence and the six or so blocks between the precinct and the train station he used was now too familiar to be particularly threatening. At this hour most of the windows were dark with a handful of exceptions and the moon was high over Avatar Island casting a massive shadow on the bay between. From one of the nearby alleys he heard a strange clanging. It sounded most like an animal banging around the trashcans but he sidled carefully up to the corner of the building and peaked around.

In a way he was right, on the top of two stacked trashcans was a spirit the color of a plum. If he had to make a guess at what exactly it was he might guess some sort of mix between a root vegetable and a fire ferret with strange, almost insect like antennae on the top of its head. Slowly he creeped out a little more to see what it was the spirit was doing. Balanced on its two trashcans the spirits small root like paws were fiddling with the hinge on one of the fire escapes whose bottoms ladder now hung by only a single support.

Upon realizing what was happening Mako stepped out into the alley, “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

The spirit looked at him for a short, shocked moment before, much to Mako’s surprise, the two antennae stood up of their own accord and launched themselves at him. With a swipe he set the first aflame in midair and easily dodged the second but by the time he looked back at the spirit it’d detached the ladder and was making its way down the alley with it clutched in two hands above its head. Without thinking he sped after it, skidding around a corner to find the alleyway blocked by a complex system of spirit vines. At the base he could just see the last few rungs of the ladder disappearing and without time to second-guess himself he dove and grabbed one.

 

The spirit couldn’t have been taller than his knee but whatever held the other side of the ladder seemed much stronger than that. He tried to brace he knee against the root of the nearest vine but was undone in a single, powerful tug and dragged underneath network of plants. Even just a foot in the ground smelled suddenly earthier, the dank smell of trash that filled the alley couldn’t penetrate the spirit wilds. In a few seconds his feet would be past the vines and he didn’t know what would happen, at the precinct there were hundreds of stories of civilians wandering into the wilds and coming out in completely different districts, disoriented from wandering.

 

“What are you doing? Why are you taking this?”

To his relief the spirit stopped and then a bizarre, high-pitched voice came back to him down the tunnel of vines.

“Jeeze, you think with how much you humans go on about balance you might actually pay attention to what’s going on.”

Then, to his surprise, another voice continued, “They’re all the same, they don’t have a clue. Not even the Avatar.”

The first voice laughed.

“Hey, kid, why don’t you go ask the Avatar what’s going on huh? After all wasn’t she the one that mashed our worlds together without thinking about the consequences?”

 

Before he could ask for an explanation the ladder was wrenched forward nearly pulling his arms out of their sockets and then forced back violently so that the bottom rung smashed him in the forehead. He saw stars and let go.

 

After a few seconds of recovery Mako emerged, minorly concussed, into the street where the lamps now seemed too bright. His arms and jaw ached with his efforts but he felt a sense of elation at the discovery: the spirits were stealing things. But why? What was the use of a ladder to being that, for the most part, could move around with as much whimsy and disregard, as they wanted? Trying to interpret what the spirits said gave him a headache; he’d have to rest before he could even hope to get into it. At least now maybe Bei Fong would take him seriously.

 

“Mako, there you are. I was hoping I would catch you.”

Speak of the devil; standing a little ways down the sidewalk was Chief Bei Fong. Was it his imagination of did she look as if she had been running? The light played off the dark metal of her armor in a strange way.

When he didn’t respond she spoke again, “Are you alright? You weren’t just robbed were you?”

His head was still fuzzy.

“No, it was spirits. I told you about those thefts? I don’t know why but the spirits are-“

            “Mako, we need to get back to the precinct.”

            “Thank you! Now that we know its spirits I think we can-“

            “It’s not about that, something’s happened in the Earth Kingdom. To Bolin.”

* * *

 

“I first heard about them maybe seven months ago? You were there, Avatar, so you know. There were a lot of groups, people with claims to the throne, anarchist groups; people who thought the Earth Kingdom should stay a monarchy. None of them had much weight but then these guys showed up. Apparently they use the Dai Li insignia, I don’t know if they’re actually Dai Li but I heard at least some of them are from the Royal Guard. They started in Ba Sing Se but then they started popping up in villages. They oppose the regions that have decided to join you; they say they’re fighting for the heritage of the Earth Kingdom. That you’re trying to take it over the way Avatar Aang took the land for Republic City.”

            “How do you know all this?”

            “Kang told me some of it but none of its secret. I thought the Avatar would know, they’ve made threats against you.”

            “So have a lot of people, its getting hard to keep track but if they have weapons like the one Kuvira had I have to get back to the Earth Kingdom as soon as possible.”

            Of course she would, Asami didn’t know what she expected.

“Wait, we should figure out what plans they have or at the very least-“

            “You look through the plans. Let me know what you find out.”

 

Then, without another word, Korra turned and walked out. Taru kept staring at the door, the sudden void of energy left by Korra’s exit threw both of them off balance and she half expected her to storm back in.

 

“Jeeze, is she always so…” Unable to explain Taru made a kind of whooshing noise and a gesture meant to symbolize the whole process of rushing suddenly to action. Asami sighed. She’d already looked away from the door without any expectation of Korra coming back.

“You have no idea. Are you alright here?”

Taru nodded, her face looked much better.

“Thanks.”

 

Korra was almost at the other end of the hallway by the time Asami got out of the conference room which meant she was using her longest, heaviest gait.

 

“Whoa, hold on!”

Korra expected her to follow, Asami could tell from her posture as she turned to face her with a discordant expression. Their contention filled the hallway, rattling the panes of the large windows that looked out over Republic City and covered the carpet with panels of florid golden light.

 

“You’re just leaving?”

The light seemed to make obvious all of the tension in Korra’s body; it highlighted the ridges of her clavicle and the muscles in her forearms, tight as bowstrings.

“It’s the job of the Avatar.”

“Earlier today you said they could survive without you until tomorrow.”

“That was before they had super weapons.”

“ _I_ couldn’t even manufacture weapons like that in a week, if what Taru said was true her brother hasn’t had them long enough for them to have time to-“

“So what? I have to trust someone who snuck into your house? That seems like a great recommendation of character.”

“Just tell me what this is really about.”

The hallway suddenly seemed comically long and filled to bursting with silence, she wanted to take a step closer but the quiet clung to her like tar and kept her from moving even an inch. For a second she almost thought she would get a straight answer, something beside evasive letters and confusing, muddled conversation but when Korra spoke it was to no avail.

 

“I left Bolin and Wu there by themselves.”

“Korra.”

“If anything happens to them it’s my fault.”

“I can’t do this anymore, you have to talk to me. You can’t just come back here and-“

“Then don’t do it, nobody’s making you.”

 

The words hit Asami like a blow to the stomach and she thought she might be sick but as soon as it was felt ice grew from it, encasing the pain before more damage could be done. There were things she could say but she didn’t say them, if she did it would be too certain, too definite. A malfunctioning system needs to be interrupted and repaired, simple. So before Korra could beat her to it she turned away and walked back through the door.


End file.
